The following description is provided to assist the understanding of the reader. None of the information provided or references cited is admitted to be prior art.
Customer loyalty programs are intended to reward a customer for using a product or service and to incentivize further use of the product or service by the customer. The product or service can be a credit card, a debit card, shopping services provided by a particular merchant or group of merchants, flight services provided by a particular airline or group of airlines, etc. The reward for using the product or service can be in the form of cash back, free gear, discounted gear, free services, discounted services, etc. Traditional customer loyalty programs allow a user to log in to a website to manage and redeem accumulated rewards. Other customer loyalty programs attempt to provide real-time redemption of accumulated rewards. However, such programs require specialized point-of-sale (POS) devices and coordinated cooperation between the entity that is providing the customer loyalty program and the merchant associated with the point-of-sale.